Klaus Martin Schwab (born 1938)



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Born

30 March 1938 (age 83)

Ravensburg, Germany

Education

Occupation

Founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum

Notable work

COVID-19: The Great Reset (2020)

Spouse(s)

Hilde Schwab ​(m. 1971)​

Children

2



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Klaus Schwab

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Klaus Martin Schwab (German pronunciation: [klaʊs ˈmaʁtiːn ʃvaːp]; born 30 March 1938) is a German engineer and economist best known as the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.[1] His wife, former assistant and first collaborator,[2][3] Hilde, co-founded the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship with him.

Early life

Schwab obtained his Abitur or high school diploma from the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Ravensburg, Germany.[4][5] In 1961, he graduated as a mechanical engineer from ETH Zurich (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology),[6] then gained a doctorate in Engineering from ETH Zurich,[7] a doctorate in Economics from the University of Fribourg,[8] and a Master of Public Administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.[9] While at Harvard, Schwab began what he has described as "the 50-year-long mentorship" by Henry Kissinger.[10][11]

Career

Schwab was professor of business policy at the University of Geneva from 1972 to 2003, and since then, has been an Honorary Professor there.[12] Since 1979, he has published the Global Competitiveness Report, an annual report assessing the potential for increasing productivity and economic growth of countries around the world, written by a team of economists. The report is based on a methodology developed by Schwab, measuring competitiveness not only in terms of productivity but also based on sustainability criteria.[13]

He has authored and co-authored several books, including The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016),[14] Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution (2018, with Nicholas Davis),[15] COVID-19: The Great Reset (2020, with Thierry Malleret),[16][17] and Stakeholder Capitalism (2021, with Peter Vanham).[18]

During the earlier years of his career, he was on a number of company boards, such as The Swatch Group, The Daily Mail Group, and Vontobel Holding. He is a former member of the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group.[19]

Schwab declared in an interview with the Swiss Handelszeitung in 2009 to be dreaming of receiving the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.[20]

WEF and other foundations

In 1971, Schwab founded the European Management Forum,[21] which in 1987 became the World Economic Forum—often referred to simply as "Davos"—as a not-for-profit foundation committed to improving the state of the world. He founded the WEF in 1971, the same year in which he published Moderne Unternehmensführung im Maschinenbau[22] (Modern Enterprise Management in Mechanical Engineering). In that book, he argued that the management of a modern enterprise must serve not only shareholders but all stakeholders (die Interessenten), to achieve long-term growth and prosperity. Schwab has championed the multistakeholder concept since the WEF’s inception. In 2015, the WEF was formally recognised by the Swiss Government as an "international body".[23] In 1998, Schwab and his wife founded the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, another NGO based in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 2004, Schwab created a new foundation using the US$1 million prize money from the Dan David Prize he received that year from Israel. The Forum of Young Global Leaders aims to create a dynamic global community of exceptional people (under 40) with the vision, courage and influence to drive positive change in the world.[24]

In 2011, he founded the Global Shapers Community, a global network of local communities, or "hubs", of young people aged 20 to 30 who are exceptional in their potential, achievements and drive to make a contribute to their communities. As of September 2021, there were 444 Hubs with 10,600 Shapers.[25]

Criticism

Salary level and lack of financial transparency

While Schwab had declared to see excessively high management salaries as "no longer socially acceptable",[26] his own annual salary of about one million Swiss Francs has been repeatedly addressed by the media. The Swiss radio and television corporation SRF reflected this salary level in the context of ongoing public contributions to the WEF and the fact that the Forum does not pay any federal taxes.[27] Moreover, the former Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung journalist Jürgen Dunsch criticized that financial reports of the WEF as institution headed by Klaus Schwab were not very transparent since neither income nor expenditures were broken down.[28]

Capture of democratic structures and institutions

Schwab as publisher of the World Economic Forum's 2010 "Global Redesign" report postulates that a globalized world is best managed by a coalition of multinational corporations, governments (including through the UN system) and select civil society organizations (CSOs).[29] It argues that governments no longer are "the overwhelmingly dominant actors on the world stage" and that “the time has come for a new stakeholder paradigm of international governance”. The WEF's vision includes a "public-private" UN, in which certain specialized agencies would operate under joint State and non-State governance systems.[30]

According to the Transnational Institute (TNI), the Forum is hence planning to replace a recognised democratic model with a model where a self-selected group of "stakeholders" make decisions on behalf of the people.[31] The think tank summarises that we are increasingly entering a world where gatherings such as Davos are "a silent global coup d'etat" to capture governance.[32]

Controversy with Davos municipality

In June 2021, Schwab sharply criticised the "profiteering", "complacency" and "lack of commitment" by the municipality of Davos in relation to the WEF annual meeting. He mentioned that the preparation of the COVID-related meeting in Singapore in 2021/2022[33] had created an alternative to its Swiss host and sees the chance that the annual meeting will stay in Davos between 40 and 70 per cent.[34][35]

Other activities and awards

Schwab has been the recipient of seventeen honorary doctorates,[36] including ones from the London School of Economics,[37] the National University of Singapore,[38] the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology,[39] and over a dozen other universities. Chronologically, they are:

  • 1991 Honorary Doctorate of Bishop's University, Lennoxville, Québec, Canada

  • 1992 Honorary Doctorate of Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, Mexico

  • 1996 Honorary Doctorate of University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovak Republic[40]

  • 1999 Honorary Doctorate of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland[41]

  • 1999 Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheva, Israel[42]

  • 2002 Honorary Doctorate of Science of London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom[43]

  • 2008 Honorary Doctorate of Humanities Kazan State University, Tatarstan

  • 2009 Honorary Doctorate of the University of Latvia[44]

  • 2009 Honorary Doctorate of the European Business School, Germany

  • 2009 Honorary Doctorate of Nankai University, Tianjin, People's Republic of China[45]

  • 2010 Honorary Doctorate of Economics of the Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City[46]

  • 2011 Honorary Doctorate of Economics of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland[47]

  • 2012 Honorary Doctorate of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand[48]

  • 2015 Honorary Doctorate of Science of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Republic of Korea[49]

  • 2017 Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy of Haifa University, Israel[50]

  • 2017 Honorary Doctorate of Letters of the National University of Singapore

  • 2017 Honorary Doctorate of Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania[51]

He is also an honorary professor of the University of Geneva and the China Foreign Affairs University.[52]

His other awards include:

He is an honorary member at FC Bayern Munich.


In 2020 he published his economic planning project entitled The Great Reset with Thierry Malleret in book form. The Great Reset is also the name of a proposal submitted by the World Economic Forum in May 2020 for economic planning for the sustainable reconstruction of the economy and society after the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated economic crisis 2020-2021 .

Books

References

External links

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